The Ramsey Show - App - You Can Honor Your Parents Without Always Agreeing With Them (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today here on the air. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Hey, we're coming up on the Christmas week, and as we come up on that, one of our favorite shows that we do, and one of your favorite shows that we do, is The Giving Show.

And always, week of Christmas, we dedicate an entire show to stories from you about someone giving you something, or you giving someone something. And the whole idea is to just promote generosity, to cause people to be jazzed about generosity. So if you've got a great giving or receiving story, email it to Kelly at DaveOnAir at RamseySolutions.com. DaveOnAir at RamseySolutions.com. Kelly will get that, look at the story, get back in touch with you, and make you part of our annual giving show. We want you to do that.

So, Rachel, I was having lunch today with some of our team members. I just randomly walked through the cafe and sat down, and it was two young ladies that had been with us for one of them less than a year and one of them less than six months. And then a – I'm sure they were like – And then Chris Russell. Yes, our CEO is sitting here. Yeah, I freaked them out.

They got indigestion. And Chris Russell was sitting there talking to them. So Chris kind of was – he broke it up. He's been with us 15 years. Yes, yes. Chris lost his house earlier in the year to the tornado. That's right. Completely destroyed.

And their new home's being rebuilt. And, of course, we've helped him and been with him, walking with him all this time. And we got to talking about giving and about generosity because it's a big deal around here right now. The Ramsey Christmas party every year is outrageous. It is over the top, epic, and the budget on it is too by the way last year at this time we gave each of our 900 and some odd team members a thousand dollars put them on a bus and took them to shopping mall uh to a really high-end mall and i i mean a nice shopping experience and we had a blast and we had local uh baptist children's home which works with

children that don't have homes. And we had those families and those support families. And we had some other people, some pastors that we selected in the area. And we gave them all $1,000. They were all part of it. Our cafe team that's an outsourced team, but they're part of our team. And we certainly, you know, they make our food every day for most of us. And so all of them and so all of us just had these huge parties.

We gave away a million dollars in one day. It was a very, very cool day. It was a lot of fun. Not this year. This year, you can't have epic Christmas parties. This year, we're having barbecue, blue jeans and boots. Because we figured we need to wear boots if you're going to kick 2020 out. That's a nice way of saying it.

It needs to go. It needs to go away. Gave each of our team members a Christmas ornament that is a little dumpster on fire with 2020 on the side of it. That was one of their gifts. And we gave each of our team members $ dollars and told them to give it away find somebody that has had a horrible year because we've all had a horrible year but most people much more horrible than other people yeah for some people much more horrible so i was asking these young ladies and chris is what you do with your 250 dollars man i'm sitting at lunch crying like one of them is a found a lady the single mom who had um

you know lost they had gotten kicked out of their apartment and went and found her and she's renting in another place and just uh had told the woman come by she just handed her the envelope and the woman got home opened the envelope and just called her screaming and crying. She said, you have no idea. This is like, and $250 blows somebody's mind if you're really, really in a pinch. Oh, for sure. And it was just stories like that. And the, man, and there's 900 of us did that, 950 of us doing that stuff.

And we just did a press release yesterday. We've kept it a big secret that we went and bought $10 million worth of bad medical debt, bad car repo debt, and bad credit card debt, which you can buy at a discount. I didn't pay anywhere near $10 million for it. But we took some of what we would normally have spent on this Christmas extravaganza, and we bought $10 million worth of debt, 8,000 accounts. And our team has spent the last month calling the 8,000 accounts and telling people that their debt is forgiven because Jesus forgave us.

And so we forgave $10 million worth of debt debt medical debt and car repo debt and i mean last year we gave away a million dollars this year we forgave 10 million dollars worth of debt now it didn't cost us a million dollars you know just to be just to be fair but oh my gosh how fun how cool has this been now i had uh 10 names to call There were eight names. You got ten? Yeah, and I got none of them. I got voicemails and bad numbers. Did you get a hold of anybody? I got a hold of two. You got a hold of them?

Yes. Yes. And one of the guys, his name, I don't know his last name, Mark, because I remember. Mark, okay. And he answered, because everyone you get, oh, this Verizon number has been, you know, that's like what I kept getting. Yeah, because they're in collections. So they don't want to answer their phone because they think a collector's calling, right?

Or it's been a bad number or something. But yeah, but he said, hello. And I was like, Mark? And he said, who is this? And I was like, Mark, this is Rachel Cruz. I work with Ramsey Solutions. And I kind of gave him like the whole thing. And it was a $6,700 medical debt

out of Texas. And he literally just didn't believe me. He was like, you're a con. Oh yeah. He was like, I don't, I don't understand. And I was like, no Mark, it's good. It's, it's over. Like we paid it.

We paid your medical debt. Excuse me. Who? I mean, it was just like, so I finally told him, I was like, go to DaveRams.com backslash forgiven and you'll see that we're doing it as a company and and you can read all about it, and you'll get a certified letter in the mail, three to four weeks to prove to it. But yeah, it was, yeah. I think it's shocking.

I don't know how many people have mostly- He didn't know how to react. Well, no, because he was like, what? That's a con. That's funny. So we got a whole two, though. What was the other one? That's a remark.

No, what was a, well, I said get a whole two, a voicemail. A voicemail, okay. But it actually got through to the voicemail. The other two- Oh, what was a voicemail? Well, I said get ahold of it. A voicemail. A voicemail, okay. But it actually got through to the voicemail. Oh, I left several voicemails. Well, my other two numbers had, because I only had four. You're special and you got ten. But my other two numbers were like the do-do-do-do. This Verizon line has been disconnected.

So there was no communication. Well, this is what collectors go through trying to find people to collect on them, right? It's the same stuff. And again, I think we got voicemail because if i if i see a number i'm not in collections but if i see a number i don't recognize i don't answer it totally i know that's why i wish you could like be like this is not a collector please answer your phone because it calls us we have good news but to to with great joy credit who came up with the idea because i didn't even hear about it until our big staff meeting when we

announced it last month but brilliant brilliant idea. Brilliant idea. Because as a team, like we talk about all the time, but like we, the company, I mean, we're just a generous company to our team members. And Christmas is a big deal to us. Like you said, like we gave away $1,000 to every team member. Yeah, but our team didn't get much this year. No. And so, but honestly, people.

But they got the opportunity to help other people this year. And it was like. And they're more high than if you'd have given them $2,000. That's what I was going to say. People love it. Like, if you are able to help people, it is the most exciting, fun thing. I mean, it's amazing. Amazing.

Were you a little bit nervous calling? When Mark answered, I was like. No, I mean, well, I mean, after getting a do-do-do-do several times. But I mean, when you're dialing this, you're calling up somebody that you never talked to before. I actually had a, for just a second, I had a little bit of nerves. It was a little bit weird. Yeah, but then nobody answered, so it was no problem, right? I didn't talk to any humans.

But, yeah, there were some great stories all through the company. People crying and saying, thank you, Jesus, and screaming and running around the room and all kinds of stuff. So fun. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Has your family grown larger over the years? Ours has too. Christian Healthcare Ministries is now helping over 425,000 members bear each other's health cost burdens. CHM offers budget-friendly options to suit a variety of needs,

from the ability to choose your own medical professional to a portable program that moves with you throughout life. We even offer a generous maternity option that has helped many couples welcome new additions to the family. Today, many of those babies have grown, gotten married, and have once again turned to CHM. This next generation trusts CHM to meet their health cost needs and be part of a faithful community as they are expecting children of their own. How about you? Would you like to be a part of our family as you grow your own? To learn more, visit us online at chministries.org slash budget and explore which options are right for you and your family.

chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Kaylee is with us. Kaylee is in Colorado Springs. Hi, Kaylee. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can Rachel and I help? Thank you for taking my call. So I'm calling because my husband and I just sold our home and we're about to finish Baby Step 2 with the profits from that. Great. And we will have $7,000 left over after we pay our debt off. Great. We wanted to, instead of directly going into Baby Step 3,

his mom had helped us quite a bit when he was newly enlisted in the Army and not making a lot of money yet. So we wanted to give her $5,000 because she's out of work right now with COVID and struggling a little bit. My question is when we called her to let her know we were going to spend that instead of, she had always given us money as a gift and said she didn't want to ever be paid back. And when we told her we were going to spend her $5,000, she kind of acted like, oh, that's all. So now we're kind of worried about straining that relationship with her. And we're wondering if we should send her more and not pay off all of our debt right now and kind of work on it the rest of this year or if we should cancel our debt

bill and maybe give her more money later down the road. Kelly, is this an assumption that that's how she felt from her tone or did she say with her words, did you guys ask questions and have a more in-depth conversation so you know exactly what she's thinking? So we tried to. She kind of just said, well, I'm so happy for you guys. I want you to be out of debt. But, you know, she has a lot of debt herself and she's just she's having a really hard time.

We also know, though, she even though she's out of work, she is single. She lives for free with her sister, who's a retired nurse. So she's got a roof over her head. She has food to eat. She just makes a lot of poor decisions with the money that she does make. So we don't want to, we want to be generous. We don't want to keep, we don't want to enable that because we don't agree with the choices that she makes. But, um, yeah, we're just, we don't want to, we don't want to strain the relationship. We don't want to, you know, she said that's fine. Give me 5,000 and, you know, pay off your debt and we worry about later.

And that's what she said. Yeah. We're worried that's going to be a never-ending thing. We don't want to be supporting her bad decisions here. Yeah. Well, I think that there's levels of communication that have to be had and there's going to be

boundaries that you guys are going to set. And so, as Dave Ramsey sitting next to me would always say in life, to be unclear is to going to set. And so to be, as Dave Ramsey sitting next to me would always say in life, to be unclear is to be unkind. And so from the story you've told me, she has given you guys money in the past to help you, but she said, I never want it repaid. Now you guys are in a better situation financially. You're getting your debt paid off. You have some extra cash and you think, okay, we're going to bless her and give her a gift to help her during this hard time. Partly because, yes, she helped us in the past, but this is our gift to her,

no strings attached. So what you have to realize is that if there is a gift that you guys feel like you want to give her, there has to be no strings attached. You're going to know that she's probably going to mismanage this money. And if you give her more, that's the more she's going to mismanage that money. And so if there's an amount that you guys want to give and say, Hey, you know, again, because of the situation you're in, we're choosing to give you this, but mom, here's the plan. We as a couple are getting out of debt. We're going through the baby steps. And once we get out of it, and if you would like to come along this journey with us and you want to go through Ramsey plus, and you want to take some online classes and budget, and you start doing these through Ramsey Plus and you want to take some online classes

and budget and you start doing these things, we'd love to walk beside you. But we want this money to be a blessing to you and not a curse. Yeah. So here's the deal. If you give her $5,000 or you give her $15,000, it doesn't change a thing.

Does it? No. So you can't give her enough money because you don't have enough money for her problems to go away. Right. So give her $5,000 and tell her, let your husband handle this. This is his mom. You can't handle it. You are the daughter-in-law, which means when you talk, it doesn't go well. So you need to be real quiet.

He needs to handle this with his mom. Very, very slow cadence of speech, deep octave, which indicates that he's feeling very calm and very strong mom i love you and we are so excited that we're getting out of debt we're going to give you this five thousand dollars when you gave us the other money you said it was a gift with no strings and we're giving you this money as a gift with no strings we're not going to be able to do this very often or maybe never again and we're giving you this money as a gift with no strings. We're not going to be able to do this very often or maybe never again, and we would like to help you in other ways and let you go along with us on this journey that we're going on.

You may or may not want to do that, but if you wanted to go through Financial Peace and Ramsey Plus, Mom will pay for it for you as a part of, and we'll add that to the $5,000. But, Mom, I'm not repaying everything you gave me because when you gave it to me, you told me it was a gift. And let yourself be free of her little guilt trip that she laid. Cut the tie on that clean. Otherwise, she's going to keep coming back to the well and she's going to feel entitled to come back to the well because you didn't cut he didn't cut the apron strings so he she is she

the only reason she's misbehaving here is because she's scared and she's broke if this woman had money she actually is silly generous because she gave you money probably she didn't have back then right exactly yeah yeah so she's not a bad person that breaks her promises she's just a scared person and i really am going to have to let her fear that is leading her to shame me lay over there in her house, not in my house. That's the boundary. That sounds very mean or very tough, but there's not enough money to stop this from happening, and there is no end to this thread if you pull it on this sweater. Am I right, Kaylee?

Yes, that's right. That's what we're worried about. He has to handle this, not you. You don't even need to be on the phone. Okay. Because you're going to end up being the Wicked Witch of the West in this story, if you

are. And I don't want you to get that reputation in this situation. I want you to be free of it. Matter of fact, if she's mad at somebody, I'd rather her be mad at her son than her daughter-in-law. Because that's harder for her to do. This is not a bad person. She's scared and she's out of control.

And if you can help her get in control, like Rachel said, and not be scared, that's going to be worth $50,000 to her, not $5,000. But you don't have any money. You don't have enough money to change this woman's life. Now, later on, if you've got a million dollars and you want to give her 100,000 and straighten her life up, you can change her life doing that. She'd still go back and screw it up, but you can change her life. But right now, you don't have the difference in what you can do that strains you versus the 5,000 is not a difference maker in this story. It doesn't change the story. So I'd stick with the five and I'd lay down a boundary, clip the apron strings and offer

a cheerlead and help and walk through Ramsey Plus Financial Peace University together with her. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. These are some of the most difficult conversations that people ever have around money. I think this kind of conversation is even harder than a marital conversation. Because of the relationship between a parent and a child, and it's, you're taking care of the parents, like role reversal feeling. Well, and just the dynamic of it. I mean, I diapered you, you owe me.

Yeah. Yeah. I bought you school clothes. I worked three extra jobs when you were 12 years old and you owe me. No, that was kind of your job. No, it's not how this works. But there is something. Your child is not enslaved to you forever based on your freaking misbehavior. No, but maybe the next break we'll talk about after the break. But how to honor your parents. Yeah, you can do that.

You can do that. But it's just the assumption of some of these guilt-tripping parents is beyond belief. Yes, I agree. I'm, Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. This year has been hard for everyone. But I'm betting you know someone who's had a really hard year. Maybe they got slammed with medical bills or the paycheck they relied on suddenly wasn't there. Well, they shouldn't have to struggle like that ever again,

and they don't have to. This Christmas, you can give them some peace of mind back and help them build a life that is a little more bulletproof. You can help them feel some hope with Ramsey Plus. It's our step-by-step money plan that helps people get out of debt fast so they can finally save money, because once they're not sending all their money to the bank they breathe easier when the next emergency hits it includes financial peace university every dollar it includes the baby step tracker it's everything you need to get everything turned around and you can give it as a gift ramsey plus Go to DaveRamsey.com slash store, DaveRamsey.com slash store, and we'll work it out. All right, going into that break, we're talking about

moms or dads asking for money or asking for help. Yeah, and I just think it's an interesting discussion because there's a level of unhealthiness that a parent can have to say, oh yeah, I'm entitled to some of your money as a child and expect their adult children to help them. But there also is the beauty in helping your parents. If you've worked this plan and you're out of debt, you have an emergency fund and you're building wealth. And so we're just talking about like, what's the balance of not enabling bad behavior if they choose to do poor things with money, but yet being able to bless and help your parents. Well, and you can add to the conversation.

Those of us that are Christians, we see clearly in the Bible, honor your father and mother. Yep. So as people that are listening, listeners out there, you know of how to direct them and doing doing that well if that's something that they choose to do. Okay. So it's a little bit like honoring the president. Okay. If you do that, you may very well disagree with the person that's in office, their politics, their procedures, their theology, their beliefs, their values, whatever. But you still honor the office of the president.

And you pray for the president, even if you disagree with them dramatically. We've lost a lot of that in our country, and we've lost this other thing. So you can honor the office of fatherhood or motherhood without honoring misbehavior so an extreme example your your your dad is doing cocaine and he keeps asking you for money well unless you're completely screwed in the head you are you know you're released from the obligation to give a cocaine addict money i mean right right so now how do you how do you honor father that's a cocaine addict i mean how do you do that well you have to honor the fact that he's dad the father but you don't honor the cocaine part and you don't participate in that part by funding it right right you know

and so a mine much more minor example someone who's just like that last lady, is misbehaving with money. She makes bad money decisions, her daughter-in-law said. And she has throughout her whole life. And she lives in her sister's house because she doesn't even have a place to live because she's not even taking care of her money enough to maintain the dignity of that. And it's all because of choices, according to the story we heard. Right, right. So we can honor mom.

We can honor her generosity towards this couple early in their marriage when he's first in the military and that as she said but we don't have to honor her situation uh we don't have to honor her behavior we can just honor her and love her right where she is and so you can it's um a little bit of the sinner, hate the sin kind of a thing. And so that allows you to be kind, but it also allows you to separate the behavior and not become an enabler and giving someone money that is not helping. If it's not helping, you're an enabler. That's what it comes down to.

And you're falling for guilt trips and you've got a toxic environment and well you know i'm afraid i won't have a relationship with them if you have to pay for a relationship that's called prostitution that's not it's not a real relationship it's not i mean if you have to have paid for friends you don't have real friends and so if you have a if the only way your mom talks to you is you give her money, this relationship was gone a long time ago. It's time to call it. And so you are not morally, spiritually obligated to give anyone money, anyone, except minor children that are yours. You're morally obligated, spiritually obligated to take care of children,

your own especially. But you're not obligated to take care of your sibling. You're not obligated to take care of your uncle, your grandmother, your mother, your grown child who continually misbehaves since 31 and living in your basement. You're not morally or spiritually obligated now we love them even the stupid ones and you know we do and we we can honor the fact that this is my brother my sister this is my mother this is whatever right you can honor that but you don't have to honor the stupidity and you don't have to fund it to prove that you

love them or to give them honor giving honor is separate from giving them money they're two different things and it's very difficult to separate especially when someone is a travel agent for guilt trips and they just call you up and go well i did this for you and now you leave me oh yeah you feel terrible yeah you know i'm afraid if i don't give my daughter money that that my grandbabies won't have any money to eat, any food to eat, because that's what she tells me. You know, like the mother that calls her mother and says, Mom, I need some money, and if you don't give me some money, your grandbabies aren't going to eat. Well, that's just low blow right there.

Because they feel entitled. I've talked to people on the inheritance issue. They feel entitled to their parents' money upon their death. It's not yours. Yeah. You don't have an entitlement to it. You don't have a right to it. Leaving an inheritance is a choice of the person who owns the money,

not the person receiving it. And so, you know, this concept that somehow you hit the DNA lottery by being in someone's family is false. And so, but then the problem is, as you navigate it, it's always a very rough conversation because you can never give enough. And when you finally realize that, then you also find out that this whole thing was ragged out anyway and it wasn't going to work. Yeah. And then the relationship goes sideways. And so you can give somebody money for 10 years and then stop and they'll not speak to you, you know, because they've become entitled.

It's a short-term band-aid. Yeah, exactly. Over some bigger issues eventually eventually this runs out you know eventually somebody runs out of money somewhere or patients or something and and so that that's what you know you know dr henry cloud's book the boundaries is um uh is the bible for this, for this discussion, and being able to set boundaries in place. Now, the truth is that our family, my family and Sharon's family,

have not been an issue. They've been happy for us that we've become successful financially, and they don't all line up at the door wanting money. As a matter of fact, none of them have ever asked us for a dime, ever. That's pretty weird, honestly. But it's a blessing. Yeah. So, you know,, none of them have ever asked us for a dime, ever. That's pretty weird, honestly. But it's a blessing. Yeah. So, you know, we're not discussing like I have a friend.

It's really me. We're not doing that. You know, this is, and, you know, our kids are self-sufficient. You guys don't come to us for money. And we certainly don't come to you for money and that kind of stuff. So it um but if somebody in if one of your cousins needed help on something their kid was had a medical thing or whatever we would be there in a heartbeat but there would not but they're not the type of people that would lay that out as an expectation that we would be there it would be a it's not generosity if you're shamed into it

is this totally totally what you're talking about? The spirit of it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because I think, or at least I have friends, and we've talked about, okay, so how do we honor our parents if kids have become more successful than their parents financially? What does that look like? And so having that discussion is just fascinating.

It's very interesting. Most of the parents don't care. Yeah. Like, I know a situation like that that is a good friend of both of ours. And he paid his dad's house off the other day just to watch his dad cry. He wanted to see his dad cry. It was fabulous. It was just an act of generosity, though.

And dad had in no way inferred that he was due that. Yep. It's good. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. our scripture of the day ecclesiastes 7a better is the end of a thing than its beginning and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. T.S. Eliot said, to make an end is to make a beginning.

Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today here on the air. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Means even if you mismeasure or you pick the wrong color they'll remake your blinds for free they give you free samples free shipping new promos all the time to

save even more money use the promo code ramsey today's question comes from todd in indiana he said my wife and i are on baby steps four five and six we continue to do our monthly budget meeting and each track our spending on a daily basis. Being the holiday season is upon us, I want to purchase a Christmas gift for her. That would be a complete surprise. This would be a purchase within our budget means and would easily catch her attention if she saw the track. This transaction show up in every dollar. And to withdraw cash from the bank would certainly be eyebrow raising as well. Well, Todd, this is a couple of things you can do.

Okay, number one, it's Christmas. So I don't think it's gonna be a huge shock that you guys are gonna be getting gifts. So you could just say, hey, let's each get a gift and go buy a Visa gift card so she doesn't know where it was spent and you buy the gift because it's Christmas and that's what's happening, right?

Anniversary's, birthday's, Christmas, kind of assume's going to be a gift uh but if you want it to be extra stealth this is what i did i'll be curious if you get mad at me dave for this advice i did this for winston i bought him concert tickets for a birthday once and i actually had my mom pay for them and then on the birthday after we went and went to the concert i paid her back so he wouldn't see the transaction so and this was all hidden from me of course it was technically borrowing money but i had the money i just didn't want it to go through the bank because i i appreciate todd's question his His dilemma. So genuinely, if you have... The gift-giving dilemma. So I would be okay.

If you had the money... That's okay. And you had family member or friend that had the money to... It is interesting that they hid it from me. Did she charge interest? That's what I want to know. Was there interest? Did Sharon charge me interest?

Did she charge you interest? Oh, 100%. No, I'm just kidding. Sharon probably would. Mom probably would. Let's be honest. No, she didn't. But you can go around.

We still can't get Sharon to quit calling a debit card a credit card. No, she does say that all the time. I'm a credit card. You don't have a credit card. She will say that. We get my credit card out of my purse. I'm like, Mom, it's a debit card. You can't say that.

You can't say that. You're Sharon Ramsey. Jeez, man. It's the best. She's the best. Anyways, that's what I did. Okay. Jeez, man. It's the best. She's the best. Anyways, that's what I did. Okay. So just an option.

Yeah. I think your first option, it fits if you don't have Mama's Secret Santa to bail you out. Yes. Yes. All right. Troy is with us. Troy's in Lexington, Kentucky. Hey, Troy.

What's up? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? The question is, my wife and I just sold our house on Monday. Wow. We are 100% completely debt-free, and we tithe 10% on our paychecks, and we are wondering how to tithe on this money that we have come into.

Okay. The first baseline I tell people is it doesn't matter. I believe in tithing, but I'm not a legalist about it, because your Heavenly Father is crazy about you. He teaches us to tithe because He wants us to be generous and be givers because he's a giver. He gave his only son. So once we get that kind of dialed in and release ourselves from the details or the nuanced things like God's not going to like me if I mess this up or something, he loves you anyway. Okay. So you can't mess up his love based on screwing up the tithe. So you really got to put that out there because some people get all torched about this stuff. So the way I have done it, and now I'll get hate mail because of the people that are torched about it, but is if you're going to buy another house with it, you didn't, quote, take the profit.

You rolled it into another house. If you're going to consume it and spend it, then you might want to tithe on it. Because the tithing scripture says to tithe on your net increase, which would be the profit of selling an item. But with a home, it's not unusual for you to take 100% of that money and put it into the next home. And so in that sense, you haven't profited. Personally, you have. I mean, it's a detail.

It's a nuanced way of looking at it. It's kind of like a capital gain. You're used to in the old days you could buy another house and roll all your capital gain into your other house. You don't have to do that now. Now you can take a capital gain of up to a half million dollars, married filing jointly with zero taxes, and even if you do buy another house, you can't avoid it. So it doesn't help to roll it into the next deal. But that's kind of where I got that

idea from, was you're rolling it in. But if you're going to actually consume the money, you may want to pray about it. It's probably, in my case, I would tithe on it then. If I was buying another house, in my case, I wouldn't. Yeah. And Troy If I was buying another house, in my case, I wouldn't. Yeah, and Troy, I think, too, you guys are out of debt. You said, so you're in a place where you can be generous. So 10% of that earning, I'm sure, is a good bit. But you could look at it as just like, yeah, we get to gift this because we don't have any debt. We don't have bills, and we're able to be generous.

And again, if you're being technical, it's not on the proceeds of the house. It's on the proceeds of the house. It's on the net profit. So if you paid $300,000 for it and you sold it for $310,000, your proceeds would be $310,000, but your profit would be $10,000. And so that's what you would tithe on is your net increase. What did you profit if you're being very detailed and very careful and all that kind of stuff? That's the trick to look for. But again, I think you just kind of think through it that way. Another example I'll tell you with that is I don't tithe on profit from this business

as long as it's still sitting in the business because it may be reinvested into the business the next year even though I have to pay taxes on it this year. It's still sitting here. But if I take it home out of here to do something with that's when i tithe on it that's how i break it down but technically i have increased and you could you could if you wanted to be real legalistic about it you could say i was wrong so it's almost impossible to get a hundred percent of those right unless you just overgive on everything which by the way is not even a bad idea right that's kind of you can hardly screw up over giving totally yeah you

really can't mess that up giving is not something you can hardly mess up hannah's in colorado springs hi hannah how are you hi good how are you thanks for taking my call sure what's up so um i have an eight-year-old daughter, and she has a savings account of about $6,000. So every year we put the child tax credit back in her account. And her dad is in the military, and we don't have to worry about education since he has the post-9-11. So my question is, since I don't want to do a 529 do you recommend any other interest program uh that way she can accumulate over time in her savings account okay post 9-11 bill is wonderful but you do need a 529 in addition to that because there's some

things it won't cover so you're going to come up short if you count only on that um and so i would do some savings you don't have to do as much as someone who doesn't have that wonderful benefit and tell your husband thanks for his service and i'm glad my tax dollars are going to that kind of thing that's wonderful but uh then so i do some in a 529 as far as this account i wouldn't use it for a 529 i would use this account for her future car and what we did with our kids was their little miscellaneous child savings account was they were always saving for the first car and so if you got 50 birthday money you want to spend a little bit of it we want to save some of it then we would do some in there and that way you had some money for your car right yeah six grand though at that young

of an age that's significant for sure so you mean, yeah, I would say for sure to be thinking about the car, have enough in there for the car. And then if it just keeps growing and growing and growing and growing and you want to take some and just put it in a mutual fund. Yeah, that's not a bad thing. And let that grow and then add to that too if you think that this is enough for the car. And then, again, college is taken care of there, but letting that mutual fund grow is an option, too.

Well, and what we did beyond that, but it depends on the situation mom and dad are in, but what we did beyond that, she's taking the tax credit and that kind of stuff, so it kind of gives you the same feeling. Like, once you guys got to the age you started working, I filed a tax return on your earnings every year and put that much into a Roth IRA in your name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's other ways you can do this in a good mutual fund. So you guys have pretty good Roth IRAs going by the time you got out of college.

And you didn't put any of it in. But you had to have an earned income and a tax filing to do that. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. Thanks, Rachel. Thanks, James. Thanks, Kelly and the booth. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,

and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about an event, product, or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes section or head over to DaveRamsey.com and click Dave recommends thanks for listening